December 06, 2007

more on the wga, from a wga wannabe

Yesterday, after reading Alec Baldwin's hilarious and somewhat brilliant HuffPo rant about how writers should create a Web site to out the worst production executives--yes, I read other blogs, but it's hard to hang out in Hollywood without people sending you HuffPost rants about the WGA all day long--I had lunch with a good friend and unemployed WGA member. (And yes, this is the sort of writer who should be employed: he's hilarious and smart; aware of the world around him; he won't create another "Yes, Dear"; and he still believes in his art even though he's met the worst of the worst at the most popular of America's TV writers' rooms.) Eventually, our malcontentedness resulted in a discussion about the state of the Union--in LA, that means WGA, wouldn't you know--and really, how could we avoid it? Our thoughts? How: A) What's probably going to happen if things don't settle down is that the studios will lure the writers with kids and houses back to work as scabs (10 showrunners already returned to work, though the WGA won't name them--what solidarity!), and then create a new studio-based union with the help of ten bigwig writers--say, the Apatows of the world--who will likely receive massive deals that eclipse whatever they already have to start an entirely new business model with far less protection for writers than what existed before. Abysmal idea, yes? What I wondered, though, was why the media companies don't just cut the fat during all this nonsense: Do the D-girls and boys with USC B.A.'s making $200K a year really help out other than just running their Blackberry batteries dead and overcharging their expense accounts at Katsuya? Do they even have business degrees from schools that teach innovation? And can't the media business be taught about as easily as, say, manicuring? One thing's for sure: talent can't be bought by a grad school degree or $3 million development deal. Yes, I'm aware that NBC doesn't matter at all to GE--the cash the corporate behemoth brings in from scud missiles and CT scanners, to say nothing of money lending and other strategies, renders the profit that NBC might make for them as less-than-tiny. But why not step in and realize that they can improve that albeit tiny profit, not by screwing writers out of their mortgages, but by sending their moron-robot execs back to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, where they probably wouldn't have ever made it to assistant manager to begin with? Look: Half of Hollywood's writers will always be unemployed. That's the way high-stakes career choices work. But now that the WGA is going to force all writers--even the unemployed--to picket for 20 hours a week (and track said writers with little plastic cards they will have to swipe! *[let's forget for the moment, that one or two of these writers might actually need those 20 hours to work at, say, Home Depot, to afford egregious union dues and salary percentages for all this brilliant "protection"]--why doesn't GE and AOL Time Warner and the Sumner Redstones of the land make a statement by giving these creatives a chance to make some money while cutting the fat in their own TV exec staffs? Let the D-people go to real jobs and then let's see what they think about being an unemployed writer. What's funnier--funnier, scarier, what's the difference today?--is that these D-people don't even realize how tenuous their jobs are--they're happy to look down on the writers, for the most part, and they don't even get that their qualities--being able to crunch numbers and make reservations at Providence--are far less valuable than creativity. Sure, the creativity that all these writers apparently have hasn't produced much in recent years--but that's because no one's letting them do anything interesting, and all the young innovators can't get meetings with good agents who don't specialize in YouTube or FunnyorDie development (such a worthwhile endeavor). So, I summarize: The producers are worthless; the media companies are blind; the WGA is straight-up rude to its high-paying members; and the writers are looking for ways to pay the bills, because for as many $200K writers I know, there are equal amounts of $20K writers holding onto brilliant pilot and feature scripts that would make Charlie Kaufman look like an NYU film-school freshman. What's the answer? Write for magazines until the WGA wises up that we deserve representation, too! At least we currently have no union overlords dying to get a piece of our paychecks. For the moment...

Why Glass Shallot?Because we don't kowtow to anyone--even a gentle old man named Sumner--who invites us to lunch at subpar Ventura Blvd. sushi purveyors.